I don’t believe there has been a time in Cardinals history where a prospect with the resume of Yhoiker Fajardo has been considered the 19th prospect in the system. The closest comparable player in recent years is Darlin Saladin, but Saladin was 21 (not 18), he pitched at both Low A and High A, and I’m pretty sure his stuff is worse than Fajardo. Well Saladin was considered the 16th best prospect last season. Working against the same prospects Saladin did last year, surely Fajardo could do even better than 16 last year? And he’s all the way down to 19 this year. Kind of insane. Current list:
Why not him?
I thought I’d create a new section and basically explain why a player you liked and may have voted for if given the chance was not added to the voting for the top 20 or in some cases, even added to a comparable player poll. For any player in the Dominican Summer League, which had a fairly strong team, or a recent international signing, I promise you: this crowd would not vote for them. Yairo Padilla and Rainiel Rodriguez were 15th and 18th on last year’s list. In a weaker system. And those guys got national attention. Your favorite DSL prospect was not getting selected.
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Ramon Mendoza I think would have had trouble, because Deniel Ortiz had trouble basically. He’s all stats. I have no scouting report for him. Fangraphs did not rank him as a prospect. He’s closer to the MLB than Ortiz, but Mendoza also has a longer history of being at best mediocre, and he’s not young for his level. It would not make sense to me that this crowd would wait until 18 to select Ortiz, and then choose Mendoza two players later. And I’m comparing them because neither are as of yet considered “real” prospects by national publications near as I can tell. (The Cardinal Nation has Ortiz 15th, but even they did not rank Mendoza as a prospect)
In the underwhelming stats department, I think Jack Gurevitch had no shot at being selected because he kind of sucked in his draft year. And if you’re wondering why I’m even mentioning him, he was ranked 20th by Baseball Prospectus. Also underwhelming is Ryan Campos, who actually made last year’s BP top 20 list, but I can’t see this group voting for a catcher with okay offensive stats and no power who is undersized. Jonathan Mejia didn’t make last year’s list and then went out and had a worse season so he was pretty easy to leave off the voting.
A lot of guys had an opportunity to be put in the voting, but lost their comparable player polls: Bryan Torres got destroyed by Blaze Jordan, still in the voting; Travis Honeyman got destroyed by Chase Davis, who is not that close to being selected for the top 20; Braden Davis lost his head to head poll to Pete Hansen, not that close to being selected; Andrew Dutkanych personally knocked out a lot of players, beating Mason Molina, Jacob Odle, Hancel Rincon, and Blake Aita in different head-to-head polls. Molina himself defeated Nate Dohm and Frank Ellisalt. Aita beat both Sem Robberse and Leonel Sequera. Won-Bin Cho and Zach Levenson did not get more votes than Colton Ledbetter and actually lost fairly easily.
And lastly, Colton Ledbetter is not on this current vote, because he was in either last or second-to-last in every single poll since I added him. He got just two votes total for the 18th vote. There is no way that guy can go from that to winning the 20th vote. To be clear, that is why he is not being added, I’ll also add I don’t think there’s a very good argument for him being in the top 20 this particular year, because well he’s not a barely worse prospect than Yhoiker Fajardo. I think he’s a slightly farther along Zach Levenson, who nobody really thinks is close to the top 20. Last year, when being in the top 20 meant being better than Zack Showalter or Travis Honeyman or Matt Koperniak, yeah I could see him being there, but not this year.
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Once again, I am adding a new player just to get a new name onto the voting. Dutkanych pretty easily won most of his comparable player polls, but one of them was an actual contest and in addition, this is a guy I can actually see being selected maybe. Or to phrase it differently, of all the possible choices not yet added to the voting, this guy seemingly has the greatest chance to be selected. That would be last year’s 4th round pick, Cade Crossland.
Jesus Baez, IF – 21
Stats (High A): 416 PAs, .244/.327/.397, 10.3 BB%, 18.5 K%, .153 ISO, .270 BABIP, 116 wRC+, 121 DRC+
Scouting (FG): 30/45 Hit, 35/50 Game Power, 50/55 Raw Power, 40/40 Speed, 40/45 Fielding
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Baez was a fairly strong hitter in High A with a good walk rate, solid K rate, solid pop. He has so far been reasonably good at making contact despite the 45 potential hit tool, although maybe that scouting is being felt from his .270 BABIP with him trading some potential strikeouts for weaker contact. DRC+ saw him as a little bit unlucky in that regard. I’m not real sure of the run environment for High A for the Mets’ affiliate, but he should have plenty of opportunity to show his power at Springfield this upcoming year at 21-years-old.
Cade Crossland, LHP – 22
Stats (SEC): 16 G, 68.1 IP, 26.6 K%, 10.4 BB%, .331 BABIP, 6.32 ERA/4.43 FIP
Scouting: 45/50 Fastball, 45/50 Slider, 45/50 Curve, 50/55 Change, 30/45 Command
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Those stats are going to be a hard sell admittedly, but we’re missing some very important context: I could not find any stats on his groundball tendencies. A .331 BABIP against for example does not exactly suggest a flyball pitcher. And if he was a heavy groundball pitcher, there’s a good chance he had a high HR/FB%, which would not necessarily be predictive of how he’ll perform as a pro. Fangraphs thinks he’s very close to having four at least average pitches although not a huge fan of his command yet.
Chase Davis, OF – 24
Stats (AA): 494 PAs, .242/.358/.353, 13.6 BB%, 29.6 K%, .111 ISO, .345 BABIP, 105 wRC+
Scouting: 30/35 Hit, 30/45 Game Power, 60/60 Raw Power, 50/50 Speed, 45/55 Field
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Davis started as a power-hitting outfielder when the Cardinals drafted him in the 1st round back in 2023 draft. That advertised power has never really come and really disappeared last year, although as we saw in spring training, it might be in there somewhere. Not necessarily advertised for his defense, it seems like it’s going to be better than originally expected, which is certainly necessary considering his bat has been worse than expected.
Andrew Dutkanych, RHP – 22
Stats (CPX): 3 G, 3.1 IP, 22.2 K%, 5.6 BB%, 38.5 GB%, .462 BABIP, 10.80 ERA/2.07 FIP/3.04 xFIP
Low A: 6 G, 14.1 IP, 35.6 K% 16.9 BB%, 46.4 GB%, .269 BABIP, 2.51 ERA/4.52 FIP/3.22 xFIP
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Fangraphs did not give him any scouting grades, but they did write a short blurb on him: “The Cardinals still took him in the seventh round, and saw him return to action late last year, where he sat 91-94 mph and flashed a promising vertical slider from an over-the-top slot that looks difficult to reach.” He had no problems with the swing-and-miss, he did have some issues with control that can be explained away by recovering from Tommy John surgery, but that explanation probably evaporates during this upcoming season.
Luis Gastelum, 24 – RHP
Stats (AA): 46 G, 62.2 IP, 35.4 K%, 6.5 BB%, 48.3 GB%, .343 BABIP, 4.02 ERA/2.19 FIP/2.31 xFIP
Scouting: 45/45 Fastball, 40/40 Slider, 65/65 Change, 50/55 Command
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Gastelum has one phenomenal pitch, and two other pitches just to make the hitter think he’s not a guarantee to throw a change. But his entire plan of attack is structured around the change. And he seems to have fairly good command, which is supported in the numbers so far at least, with pretty low BB rates. Hitters know the change is coming, and it hasn’t really helped so far. Although, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that when hitters do make contact, and it’s not very often, for some reason they’re hits a lot more than you’d expect. He has run pretty consistently high BABIPs in his pro career, like .343 is actually his professional low (when he throws at least 9 innings), which is just crazy.
Pete Hansen, LHP – 25
Stats (AA): 26 GS, 137.1 IP, 21.1 K%, 6.3 BB%, 46.2 GB%, .306 BABIP, 3.93 ERA/3.65 FIP/3.71 xFIP
Scouting: 35/35 Fastball, 45/50 Slider, 40/40 Curve, 50/55 Change, 55/60 Command
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Hansen is very likely to throw his pitch where he wants to throw it, the question is are his pitches good enough for that to matter. Obviously, command is a very important part of pitching, especially starting pitching, but all pitchers make mistakes and it’s easier to live with mistakes with hard to hit pitches in all locations. According to the scouting by Fangraphs, Hansen has a get me over curve, and will have to spot his fastball in order to get to both his slider and change, which are probably the pitches he wants hitters to swing at.
Blaze Jordan, 23 – 1B/3B
Stats (AA): 176 PAs, .320/.415/.513, 12.5 BB%, 10.8 K%, .193 ISO, .333 BABIP, 167 wRC+, 145 DRC+
AAA: 368 PAs, .248/.291/.423, 5.7 BB%, 11.1 K%, .175 ISO, .247 BABIP, 83 wRC+, 101 DRC+
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Scouting: 40/50 Hit, 40/50 Game Power, 60/60 Raw Power, 30/30 Speed, 40/45 Fielding
Jordan has had a long route to get to this point, so it’s kind of easy to forget that he’s still just 23-years-old despite being in the minor leagues since 2021. Jordan was impossibly young when he was drafted, not turning 18 until December after his draft year in 2020. One advantage of that is that it can take you the better part of five seasons just to get to AAA and a little bit longer to truly excel at AAA and still be considered young for your level. The question for him will be can he swing at the pitches he is supposed to swing at and resist swinging at pitches that’ll produce weak contact because he’s plenty good at making contact, just not necessarily good contact.
Chen-Wei Lin, 24 – RHP
Stats (Low A): 12 GS, 38.2 IP, 27.2 K%, 17.2 BB%, 50 GB%, .283 BABIP, 4.89 ERA/3.69 FIP/4.17 xFIP
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High A: 4 GS, 9.2 IP, 41.7 K%, 18.8 BB%, 50 GB%, .412 BABIP, 9.31 ERA/4.80 FIP/2.76 xFIP
Scouting: 60/70 Fastball, 40/45 Slider, 40/60 Change, 30/40 Command
From Lin’s perspective, he just has to forget about his 2025 season, because it did not go his way, even though he did end up getting a promotion to AA. One would assume if your season ends with a promotion to a higher level, that your season went as expected. Clearly in Lin’s case, it did not. What he did show was genuine swing-and-miss even though it seems like he rarely knew exactly where it was going. That profile typically sounds like a reliever, but a more healthy Lin walked just 7.8% of hitters in 2024 with over 5 innings per start. There’s still a chance.
Ryan Mitchell, 19 – OF
No stats
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Scouting: 25/55 Hit, 25/50 Game Power, 40/55 Raw Power, 60/60 Speed, 25/50 Fielding
Also kind of a hard sell: voting for a player where you are relying on scouting, albeit scouting that led the Cardinals to draft Mitchell 55th overall in the draft. So the Cardinals certainly believe he’s a prospect. He is a speedy, athletic guy who will have the chance to prove he is a good outfielder – plenty of time honestly – who seems to have a good hit tool and good potential power. Like I’ve said before, I wish I had the power to know how quickly they would advance him to Low A, because that would tell us a lot about him as a prospect.
Tai Peete, OF – 20
Stats (High A): 529 PAs, .217/.288/.404, 8.7 BB%, 30.6 K%, .187 ISO, .282 BABIP, 79 wRC+, 79 DRC+
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Scouting: 20/30 Hit, 30/50 Game Power, 50/60 Raw Power, 60/60 Speed, 45/55 Fielding
A vote for Peete is a vote for upside essentially. You’re certainly not voting for him based on his performance. In hindsight, I kind of think the Mariners should have started him in Low A last season. He did manage an above average line, but he struck out a lot and had a .391 BABIP. BABIP can be a talent in the minor leagues, but he was clearly not ready for High A. On the flipside, despite being mostly overmatched, he displayed a surprising amount of power. So his power seems legit, he’s fast, scouts think he’ll be a good fielder, but just needs to figure out how to get his K rate to a manageable level.
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